S01-3 Determining the social and economic value of football in England

Abstract Background In 2015 the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in England set out its new guidelines to redefine what success in sport means. This new focus on the social impact of sport including physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, individual development and social and community development, meant that any funding decisions will be made based on the outcomes that the sporting body can deliver. The Football Association have therefore begun a detailed assessment of the social and economic value of football in England. Methods Using national participation surveys of approximately 9000 individuals aged 16-75, we calculated the association between regular football participation and several health and social outcomes. This was combined with a review of published studies through to December 2019 examining the relationship between football, physical activity and disease risk outcomes across the life-course. This evidence base was then modelled with the estimated national football participation rate and the latest figures on national disease prevalence across 10 different diseases, to quantify the true value of football to society. Results Preliminary results have shown that football participation contributes to more than £10 billion to society each year across England. Team sport participants also reported significantly higher levels of happiness, confidence and trust compared to individuals who played no sport, or just individual sport. This impact also varies depending on the demographic groups including women, children and low-socioeconomic groups. Conclusions This analysis shows the large contribution of grassroots football to the nation's economy and to health and social wellbeing of individuals and communities. Moreover, it has proven the unique benefits of team sport participation and shown to policymakers which type of sports and activities contribute the most value to society.


Background
With many countries and communities suffering from budget cuts, policymakers are coming under increasing pressure to provide the true value of public health interventions. Owing to the scale of conclusive findings over the past decade, we now have a robust evidence base regarding the impact of physical activity on individuals and communities. However, more work needs to be done to bridge the gap between policymakers and academics.

Methods
We conducted both a review of the leading academic research as well as primary analysis of existing open-access datasets to determine the impact of physical activity on the risk of health and social outcomes across the life course. This evidence base was then modelled with the latest figures on disease prevalence and its economic impact to quantify the social and economic value of physical activity.

Results
This methodology has currently been applied to a city population, as well as a national scale evaluation of the impact of individual sports on children alone. Results have shown that the average value of physical activity, across four cities around the world including London, Stockholm, Singapore and Auckland, is US$1900 per person in economic, health and social outcomes. In addition to this when looking specifically at the 4 million children who participate in team sports across England, preliminary findings estimate the total value to be £6.5Bn annually.

Conclusions
These initial findings are already being used by policymakers to make the case for additional investment and change the way they evaluate the outcome of their policies and programmes.
For example, Aktive Auckland has secured an additional NZ$120M for sport and recreation in the 10-year annual national budget after they used results which showed the annual contribution of physical activity was $1.9Bn to the local Abstract citation ID: ckac093.004 S01-3 Determining the social and economic value of football in England The Football Association, England, London, United Kingdom Corresponding author: lottie.strong@thefa.com

Background
In 2015 the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in England set out its new guidelines to redefine what success in sport means. This new focus on the social impact of sport including physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, individual development and social and community development, meant that any funding decisions will be made based on the outcomes that the sporting body can deliver. The Football Association have therefore begun a detailed assessment of the social and economic value of football in England.

Methods
Using national participation surveys of approximately 9000 individuals aged 16-75, we calculated the association between regular football participation and several health and social outcomes. This was combined with a review of published studies through to December 2019 examining the relationship between football, physical activity and disease risk outcomes across the life-course. This evidence base was then modelled with the estimated national football participation rate and the latest figures on national disease prevalence across 10 different diseases, to quantify the true value of football to society.

Results
Preliminary results have shown that football participation contributes to more than £10 billion to society each year across England. Team sport participants also reported significantly higher levels of happiness, confidence and trust compared to individuals who played no sport, or just individual sport. This impact also varies depending on the demographic groups including women, children and low-socioeconomic groups. Conclusions This analysis shows the large contribution of grassroots football to the nation's economy and to health and social wellbeing of individuals and communities. Moreover, it has proven the unique benefits of team sport participation and shown to policymakers which type of sports and activities contribute the most value to society. As a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), physical inactivity is a prominent challenge for public health. The purpose of this symposium is to present an overview of physical inactivity prevalence in Europe using data collected through international surveillance initiatives, while highlight-2022 HEPA Europe Conference ii5